Guardians in Shadow
by Totally-Out-Of-It
Summary: Not all Guardians protect something happy or easy to define. Not all spirits are Guardians. With best friends like the spirits of death and broken families, Stiles takes comfort in those who believe in him. Derek has a message from the Man in the Moon. Written for SterekWeek2015, prompt SterekAltEra.


**Guardians in Shadow**

 _Not all Guardians protect something happy or easy to define. Not all spirits are Guardians. With best friends like the spirits of death and broken families, Stiles takes comfort in those who believe in him. Derek has a message from the Man in the Moon. Written for SterekWeek2015, prompt SterekAltEra.  
_

…

…

The endless cages of the animal shelter stood empty. Not a dog was to be found inside the shelter. The walls did not echo with the sound of barking and whining. No sad eyes gazed up at prospective forever homes. The entire room was barren.

All the noise was outside.

Outside, three shelter workers kept an eye on the dozen dogs under their care while the canines romped and played in the fenced in yard. Yorkshire terriers and pitbulls and retrievers danced around each other. They played fetch, chased each other around, tug of war with ropes tied to the building, chewed on toys, and tussled without fighting.

Stiles sat on the roof, his dark red hood up, and watched with a content smile on his face. His coat was so long it was more like a cloak, and many children had told him he looked like a Jedi Knight when they saw him, especially with the hood down. If he took the cloak off, the illusion was ruined, however, since he wore a lot of plaid.

"I knew I'd find you here."

Stiles barely even flinched. Derek had always been scarily good at popping up unexpectedly. The first five hundred times they met, Stiles had nearly come out of his skin, but he was used to it now.

He tilted his head back to stare up at the muscle spirit standing behind him. "Oh no. I'm too obvious. What should I do?" he asked in monotone worry, then smirked.

Derek rolled his eyes and took a seat beside Stiles, legs out and arms crossed. Instead of speaking, he simply took Stiles' example and watched the dogs and people below.

One of the bigger dogs crashed into the fence and bounced off like it was in some cartoon. A moment later it was back to chasing its friend so none of the workers were worried. A tiny dog was rolling a ball about as big as itself back toward one of the workers so he'd throw it again. The worker laughed and gave the little pup lots of petting when it returned, making the Chihuahua so happy it nearly fell over from shaking so much. Then he picked the ball up and tossed it, saying, "Go get it, girl," even as the dog was already bounding across the yard.

"Scott looks good," Derek said with a nod.

Stiles smiled. "Yeah. He's grown up really well. I'm proud of him."

Before Scott, only a bare handful of people could see Stiles, believed in him. Since then, Stiles had believers all over the world. The number of people who believed in magic hadn't changed all that much, but suddenly Stiles had thousands of people who could see him and interact with him.

When Derek had confronted him about it, Stiles had motioned to Scott and said 'He helped me realize the problem.'

'What was the problem?' Derek had asked.

'People believed in magic, in me, but I didn't believe in myself. I thought it'd be a miracle for someone to see me, that gaining new believers was magic in itself. Scott taught me that if I don't believe in magic, no one will.'

Stiles was brought out of his memory by Derek asking, "Can he still see us?"

As if hearing them, and maybe he had, Scott looked up at the roof where they sat. He couldn't call out to them or wave without drawing the attention and questions of his coworkers, but he smiled and nodded before returning his attention to the dogs.

"I'd say that's a clear yes, captain," Stiles chorused before standing and dusting himself off. His cloak billowed around him momentarily before lying still once more.

Then he reached down and held out a hand to Derek. Derek accepted the help up but then didn't let go once he was standing, leaving them holding hands. Derek tilted his head to the side a bit while he looked Stiles over, then let out a huff of breath and stood back. Stiles frowned and stuffed his hands in his cloak pockets.

"Did you need something? Did something happen to Lydia?" he asked, calm outwardly though he was beginning to worry inside.

A shake of the head. "No. Lydia's fine. She was complaining about the latest soul she had to help cross over when I saw her yesterday. Apparently it was a very opinionated eight year old." And he smirked for a moment.

Stiles narrowed his eyes. "So Lydia is fine, and you obviously didn't come to enjoy my company," he said with a wave of his hand, "so what does a guardian of family need from me?"

Something Stiles had always been bitter about was that he was alone. Lydia had an army of little ghosts to help her protect and ferry the souls of children who die too soon. Derek had back up too. He was the guardian of family, and he had a family to help him do his job. His sister protected adopted families. His mother protected new families. Derek protected broken families. Everyone he had was the guardian of a different kind of family. Toothiana had the fairy version of Lydia's ghosts. North had the yetis and the elves and the reindeer. Bunnymund had his egg warriors.

Stiles had nobody. Lydia had once pointed out that Sandy and MiM didn't have help either, to which Stiles repeated that neither of them actually spoke, so they needed no one to talk to. She'd then brought up Jack Frost. Stiles didn't like Jack. Lydia and Derek both told him it was because he and Jack were too similar. They both liked causing mischief, they'd both died to become guardians, they both had no sidekicks, they both resembled teenagers, and they'd both had issues being believed in.

Stiles denied all claims.

"Manny sent a message," Derek revealed, matching Stiles' posture by putting his hands in his pockets as well. "North visited Lydia's cove just to tell her about it."

Now he was interested. "Really? What's the big guy got for us now?"

"He wants to form a second team," Derek said. That drew Stiles up short. "We keep calling ourselves guardians, but we're really just spirits. Manny wants us to be a proper team. A second set of Guardians."

Stiles took a half step forward and then backed up again. "Wait, hold up. Who's 'we' in this?"

"The Guardian of Broken Families. The Guardian of Death. The Guardian of Magic," Derek listed off, holding up his fingers as he went. "The Guardian of Gratitude. The Guardian of Knowledge."

Now Stiles' face fell. "Guardian of Gra-Are you kidding me? We have to work with Greenberg?"

Derek jumped off the roof so that he was outside the back yard where the dogs were playing and Stiles hurried to follow.

"Why Greenberg? Danny's fine, but Greenberg?" Stiles complained, throwing his hood off his head.

"I think he was trying to balance the negative with some positive," Derek said, holding his hand out.

It took less than a second for Stiles to take the hand. He didn't even think about it. Then they were walking off down the road.

"Greenberg has been forgotten by his fellow spirits for awhile," Derek added.

Stiles snapped his fingers. "It's a ploy. It's showing us that no matter how insignificant you feel, or how forgotten you are, great things can still happen to you. It's a spiritual PR stunt."

Derek frowned and tightened his grip on Stiles' hand in rebuke. "Obviously, Manny thinks he's up to the job."

Looking chastised, Stiles muttered, "He probably also thinks kids need to show more gratitude."

"Humans aren't the only ones," Derek stated, though there was no bite to his words.

Stiles leaned into Derek's shoulder, almost to the point of overbalancing them but not quite. "But Greenberg is gonna cramp our 'dark guardian' style," he fake whined.

That got a chuckle from Derek, which made Stiles smile. "I'm sure you can handle it. Now come on. We're supposed to make the team official. Everyone's already at Lydia's cove. I was just sent to fetch you."

A huff. "Then why didn't you say so, man?" Stiles snapped his fingers again.

This time, red and yellow lights appeared, swirling around them until they couldn't see anything else. When it dissolved away a few moments later, they were walking down a beach by a deep and dark blue cove that split off into a dozen different rivers rather than a sidewalk in a sleepy California town.

"Honey, we're home!" Stiles called out.

It echoed around the cove for a few seconds. Then a voice replied, "Took you long enough! Did you two make out before heading over or what?"

Stiles flushed at Danny's teasing words, even though he couldn't see the other male yet. Derek shrugged one shoulder.

"No. But I could do that now," he said in his normal voice, far too quietly for anyone else to have heard it.

With another smirk, Stiles leaned his head up and pecked Derek on the cheek. The imprint of his lips remained when he pulled back – a brand of red light.

"Later. Now let's go," he said before pulling Derek down the beach at a run. "I'm gonna be a Guardian!"

...

...

 _fin._


End file.
